Et Nos Cedamus Amori
by Romula
Summary: Ginny and Draco are in love, Ron is upset (as can be expected), and something is up with Snape. A job for the Terrible Trio, or Draco Malfoy, residential witty repartee expert?


Et Nos Cedamus Amori  
  
By Romula  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Author's Notes: Ginny/Draco. WIP. Coming together slowly. The title is from a quote by Virgil, "Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori." Love conquers all, and let us yeild to it. (Eclogues, X.69)  
  
________________________________  
  
The fire in the grate sputtered softly; dying embers cast shadows across the face of the younger man, making the pair look closer in age.  
  
A stranger might have found interest in the contrast between the two people standing in that dungeon room: teacher and student; one diminutive in stature, the other tall; one dark, the other fair; one a grown man, the other barely more than a boy. Despite their obvious physical differences, they had more in common than either would have cared to admit. Both were frail, not in a physical sense (though their builds would have belied that fact) but a spiritual one, and both hid that frailty behind facades of steel laced with mercury. They allowed the world to see in them only what they desired seen, to do otherwise would be to show weakness, and neither man would be subject to that flaw.  
  
Severus Snape sighed and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. "Please have a seat, Draco."  
  
The pale boy looked slightly shocked, whether by the request itself or the break in the silence Snape could not tell. He blinked once, twice, as if to clear his vision.  
  
"If it's all the same to you, Professor, I'd rather stand."  
  
Snape sighed again. "That's fine, Draco," he said, falled back into his chair.  
  
Draco wondered at this lapse: Snape hadn't been looking well at all lately. He was moodier than usual. The day before, during double potions, Neville Longbottom had melted his second cauldron of the week and Snape had only taken five points off Gryffindor. He hadn't even given Longbottom detention. Now that Draco thought about it, Snape hadn't been eating well for weeks, or at least he had been skipping almost all the meals in the Great Hall. There were dark semi-circles under the professor's eyes and Draco wondered when he had last slept.  
  
"Professor," he began hesitantly, "you don't look. . ."  
  
"Draco, I asked you here to request a favour of you."  
  
Now Draco was truly worried. Snape didn't make "requests," he gave orders. His own curiosity was piqued, and he remained silent, waiting to hear the conclusion of this rather shocking declaration.  
  
________________________________  
  
"I don't like it."  
  
"I'm not here to make you happy, Weasley, I'm here to teach you to do Potions so that we never have to spend time in a room alone together, *ever* again." snapped Draco. He was every bit as irritable as he sounded; having lost the argument to Snape, he was now doomed to spend Sunday afternoons locked in a dank Potions dungeon with the best friend of his mortal enemy.  
  
"Not *this,* Malfoy, *you.* And my sister."  
  
Not to mention, his girlfriend's brother. Ah, but still, he had a reputation to think about. Draco smirked.  
  
"What, Weasley, you don't like your sister?"  
  
Immediately Draco said it, he regretted it. Almost. Ron looked murderous. His face was turning a shade of maroon to rival the sweaters Molly Weasley was always knitting for him, and Draco offered a silent thanks to Snape for having the forethought to set up Innoxius wards in the classroom. If either of the boys so much as poked each other in hostility, the wards would alert Snape and McGonagall. That, combined with the ordinary magical wards of Hogwarts, made Draco feel secure in his taunting. On the other hand, Ginny was distressed enough because Ron and Draco hated each other; he had established a tenuous truce with the other Weasleys, but Ron not only refused to accept Draco's new status, he refused to try. Of course, Draco was complicit in this state of affairs; he continued to find great amusement in baiting Ron, and though he felt guilty for upsetting Ginny, he felt it was unfair to deny his nature. He couldn't help who he loved, but he was *still* a Slytherin.  
  
"Malfoy, one day my sister is going to see past that pretty-boy exterior -"  
  
"You think I'm pretty, Weasley?" interrupted Draco. "I'm flattered."  
  
Ron's eyes narrowed in response. "She's going to dump you like the garbage you are, Malfoy, and you'll find out what it's like to lose for once."  
  
"Don't talk to me about loss, Weasley." Draco replied, a warning evident in his tone.  
  
"What's wrong, *Dray-co*? Afraid to fall from my sister's grace?"  
  
Draco was furious, in a detached sort of way. Odd, how the Weasleys could do that to him with seemingly little effort.  
  
"On a first name basis now, are we *Ron*?" spat Draco, like the name was some foul concoction he had been forced to swallow.  
  
"One day, Malfoy, you're going to get it, and I'm going to have front row seats. My dad is going to put your father in Azkaban for being a Death Eater, and probably your mother, too. Like that, Draco? You can visit your family in prison, with the dementors -"  
  
Wards be damned, Draco was going to kill Ron. He didn't particularly care what happened to Lucius, his father was practically begging to be sent to Azkaban anyway. But Narcissa. . .  
  
"I don't care whose brother you are, Weasley, if you say one more thing about my mother, I'll rip out your throat and make a tea cosy of it."  
  
"You gonna give it to your mum to wear as a hat?"  
  
For half a second, Draco was utterly stunned. Weasley, actually holding his own in the Witty Repartee Game? Inconceivable. He recovered a second later, hauled back, and was satisfied by the blood that issued forth when his fist collided with Ron's nose.  
  
"Aggh!" yelled Ron. "Damnit, Malfoy, what the bloody hell do you think you're -"  
  
Ron was cut short by the necessity of having to dodge a left hook. He was saved from further action by Professors Snape and McGonagall, who rushed into the room in a flurry of robes.  
  
"What on *earth* is going on in here?!" demanded McGonagall, as Snape glared over her shoulder.  
  
"Professor, I -" "He was talking about my mother -" "He started it!" "Did not!" "You did! He hit me!" "I wouldn't've if you had just kept your mouth shut -" "Go to hell, Malfoy!"  
  
If the boys had not been so deeply absorbed in their argument, they might have seen McGonagall look at Snape with an odd expression of mirth and outrage.  
  
"Severus, you deal with Malfoy. Weasley!" she snapped. "You follow me."  
  
And with that she stormed out of the room with Ron at her cloak tails, leaving a very irate Snape and a very self-satisfied Draco behind.  
  
________________________________  
  
Ginny took a seat next to Harry at the Gryffindor table. Breakfast had always been her favourite meal, but breakfast at Hogwarts surpassed anything her beleaguered mother ever had time to prepare. She poured a glass of freshly squeezed apple juice and began to spoon scrambled eggs and sausage onto her plate.  
  
"Pass the the honey, please." she said to Harry as she reached for some toast.  
  
"Mmphmph, mmph eh mumephm," came the reply.  
  
"Don't speak with your mouth full," said a voice from behind Ginny. "Not only is is terribly impolite, but it is also unhygenic. Can you just imagine, you could get food all over everyone-"  
  
Ron's speech on ettiquette was halted by several biscuits flying in his general direction.  
  
"If Hermione see you doing that, she'll have your head, you know," said Harry authoritatively.  
  
"See Ron doing what?"  
  
Harry and Ron jumped visibly and Ginny snickered.  
  
"Why, dear Hermione, mocking you. Ron was just demonstrating how-" This time Harry was cut off by Ron's hand over his mouth. "Mmnugh uhph hmmunph mee mmph - Ron!" cried Harry, jerking away. "I told you, didn't I? I said she'd be upset. . ."  
  
Hermione was quietly turning a shade of red to match Ron's hair.  
  
"Erm, yes, well. . . hunh. . ."  
  
"You two would make a lovely couple," drawled a voice from behind Ron and Harry. "Look, you even match."  
  
"Go away," said Ron without turning around.  
  
"What, no 'you're a horrible person, Malfoy,' 'no one likes you,' 'run off to your own table' today? I'm sad now.  
  
"We wouldn't want to be repetitive. You seem to understand that no one here likes you."  
  
Draco's eyes skipped across the table to rest upon Ginny. She met his steely grey with icy blue, transfixed, entranced, ensorcelled. . . all these words and many more crossed her mind when she thought of Draco's eyes, and she simply watched him, ensnared - that was another - as he was with her, wrapped up in a world that was theirs alone.  
  
"I wouldn't say that, Weasley." It was almost a whisper, as thought Draco was talking to himself, reassuring himself that it was true. "I really wouldn't say that." 


End file.
